


he then greeted death as an old friend

by seohin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Complete, Dean Winchester is Death, Dean Winchester-centric, Episode: s05e21 Two Minutes to Midnight, Episode: s10e23 My Brother's Keeper, Gen, Mark of Cain (Supernatural), Metaphors, Oaths & Vows, Powerful Dean Winchester, Pre-Series, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Season/Series 10, Stanford Era (Supernatural), Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24740680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seohin/pseuds/seohin
Summary: Sometimes, Dean dreams. It’s never happened before but these days, in a run-down motel in the middle of nowhere with a nuclear powerhouse sitting next to him and a brother across the country, he imagines that the green in his eyes in the mirror flares to power of molten gold, he thinks that if he stares at the night sky long enough he’ll find the stories written in the constellations, he’ll understand the gods behind the myths and awaken the thing, thrumming in his veins, the pulsating want that burns under his skin, waiting for a blade made of bone and teeth and for the blood running in his veins to turn to smoke that will destroy his soul.::The thing is, Death isn’t a person, it’s a position. And Dean Winchester? He’s next in line.
Relationships: Death & Dean Winchester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 108





	he then greeted death as an old friend

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Allegory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/264439) by [pprfaith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith). 



> Warnings in the endnotes
> 
> Partially betaed, all remaining mistakes are mine
> 
> (there is also deancas if u squint but if u dont deans just a bro who will destroy the world so cas can live no homo)
> 
> hope u enjoy!!

**“And so the LORD watched down from above and witnessed the birth of a babe named Dean and his brother named Sam,**

**and saw that His sister’s Mark had the children been cursed with and sent His brother Death to watch over and guide them.”**

**Joshua 1:4-5**

_**The New Bible of Winchester** _

_**(as Transcribed and Translated by Chuck Shurley,**_

_**Immortal Prophet of the Lord)**_

**From the collection of the angel Castiel**

**Retrieved at 24 January 6032**

* * *

The first time Dean saw him, he was four years old.

He heard Sammy, crying like he did that time every night. Dean sat up in the dark when he saw an old man, tall and gaunt, resting on a cane on his way to Sammy’s room. A breeze had seemed to settle on Dean’s skin, and he nestled into his blanket, watching with rapt attention as the man turned to look at him with those old eyes. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Dean looking at him and only stopped to look Dean over in a heart-stopping moment that filled him with complete and utter _fear_. The man smiled, something vaguely amused that seems to be only for Dean, before continuing on his way to Sammy’s nursery.

All he knew next is fire and flames and the parting glance of an old man as he disappeared without a word.

* * *

Dean quickly realizes that what he’s seeing isn’t normal.

The guy isn’t an imaginary friend, Dean doesn’t think. He’d heard other kids at Morrison’s mention _theirs_ , and Emily seems particularly proud of her mermaid friend, Sparky, judging by the way she had tea parties at recess every day while everyone else played tag. But when she asked Dean if he had one to join in, the strange man who sometimes followed Dad through Pastor Jim or Caleb’s door when Dad dropped in to pick them up in the middle of the night didn’t seem to fit.

The only time Dean brought him up is the first time he saw him after the fire, a few weeks after he’d begun to talk again and after Dad reluctantly dropped them off with a guy named Pastor Jim (he’d emphasized the Pastor part). Dad had shown up at the doorstep in the middle of movie night, bleeding and hurt, his right arm torn up and mangled by what Dean would later realize was a werewolf. Pastor Jim had tutted worriedly before going to shepherd Sam and Dean off to their shared room. When Dean looked past them at the guy and asked if he was one of Dad’s friends, though, Dad and Pastor Jim both froze.

“Who’s he?” Dean’d asked, and Dad and Pastor Jim had turned to look at him, wide-eyed with worry as they’d turned to grab the bag of rock salt leaning against the counter. It was that moment that he figured out that no one else could see the man, and he knew what Dad did to people like that, so he said it was nothing. Still, Pastor Jim shipped them off to some guy named Bobby who seemed to specialize in this kind of research stuff, studying and watching Dean day and night to see if he showed any more ‘symptoms’.

When they asked if Dean could see the man again, he watched the man stare at him from the shadows and said no.

* * *

“Are you a reaper?”

The man looks at him from where he sits on Sam’s bed. For once, Dean’s glad that Sam’s still at school for some kind of nerdy science thing while Dad’s out to find the wendigo, even if he’s still benched because of his bum ribs from their last failed attempt to gank it. It’s the first time Dean’s actually talked to the guy in all his eight years of seeing him. He’s noticed, of course, that these days the guy only comes out when Dean’s alone or when they’ve just ganked a monster, and he’s been reading some of Bobby’s books when he could get away with it to try and figure out why.

The man looks amused, and the smile on his face is so reminiscent of the one he wore when Mary burned to death that Dean looks to the ground to avoid throwing up.

“I’m not a reaper.”

His voice is accented and nothing like what Dean expected. Not that he really even expected him to talk, anyway. He glances up, surprised, to see the guy eating a bag of potato chips that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. The guy looks at him calmly, completely at odds with Dean. The wave of fear he’d felt so long ago in a house a thousand miles away rolls over him again and he wipes his palms on his pants, turning to look at the guy.

“What- what are you, then?” His voice trembles and his lizard brain seems to cower under the guy’s full attention. Some sort of primal instinct back from back when humans were the hunted, not the hunters, whispers in the back of his mind, telling him to fall to his knees to beg for forgiveness. It takes an unexpected amount of his self-control not to do so, and he clears his throat to try and ignore how weak and vulnerable he feels.

The guy looks at him, matter-of-fact, and reaches down to grab another chip. “Death.”

* * *

When Sam turned ten, he got sick.

Really, really sick.

Dean and Dad come back from the djinn hunt early after a call from a worried teacher who says Sam’s been absent, practically hurtling through the door to find Sam. He’s burning with infection and fever from a wound he hadn’t even told them about, staring at the ceiling while sweat dripped from him by the bucketful. His little blanket fort didn’t seem to stop him from shivering, eyes glazed over and teeth chattering even as he huddles into the suspiciously-stained green blanket.

Death is standing in the corner, and, for the first time that Dean can remember, not looking at Dean. Instead, he’s staring at Sam with something that looks almost like regret, even as he raises a pale hand to rest on his cane that Dean’s long-since learned is just for show, anyway. His ring, a thick silver monstrosity, seems to glint dangerously, with the shine in it Dad gets in his eyes after a particularly good hunt. Dean turns to see Dad, looking terrified even as he moved Sam’s long limbs away from the blankets that looked like they would choke him, Sam deliriously trying to push Dad away with a lack of force that has worry gnaw deep into his gut. 

Terror pulses in him. His heart races and palms sweat, nothing like the adrenaline that Dean has when they’re on a hunt. He bites back the urge to throw up when he sees Sam’s body begin to jerkily thrash around like he’s not even in control of his limbs. 

“Dean! _Dean_!”

He breaks out of his stupor to see Dad, staring at him with a one-track mind that does nothing to soothe him. “You can’t zone out like that, son,” he barks, gruff and unforgiving. Without another word Dean realizes what he’s saying and quickly rushes over to pick up Sam, who is scarily underweight, while Dad goes on ahead to open up the bathroom and look for medical supplies that they don’t have. Not for this kind of thing.

“I‘m sorry, Dean,” Sam mutters blearily, a string of drool falling from his mouth where his head rests on Dean’s shoulders. He doesn’t even have it in him to joke about it, to try and raise Sam’s spirits and pretend everything’s going to be fine, so he just looks up at Death, who’s gotten close. 

Too close.

“ _You_ ,” Dean hisses, and he points a finger in Death’s face, trying to ignore the wave of fear that always seems to accompany any of their little one-sided chats, few and far between since the first time they’d spoken. “It is _not_ Sam’s time yet. You — you’ll — help me —” he cuts off when he hears the door open, and he steps right up to him, surprised that he has to look down to look Death in the eye — the only thing he has over Death, and hell help him because he needs all he can get before Dad comes back and thinks both his boys have gone insane. “You _cannot_ take Sam, you hear me? Take me, if you have to, but _not Sam_. _Never_ Sam.”

And then that’s all he can say because Sam seems to fall into another seizure and he’s vaguely aware of Dad giving up and calling 911 behind him while Death watches Dean with a strange look on his face before he shrugs and nods, looking Dean in the eye. He has a horrible twisting in his gut, a feeling of vertigo that threatens to collapse him, and he knows that he just made some sort of promise, a vow he isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep, but he still stares at Death, almost _daring_ him to fight back. Even as Sam babbled incoherently in his arms he felt the anger in him pushing Death away, he felt Death twist his ring and look at him and then disappear with the sound of wings.

Death never ends up stepping foot in Sam’s hospital room.

* * *

When Sam leaves for Stanford, Dad calls quits on his and Dean’s partnership after the Cassie incident, and soon it’s just Dean and Death and the open road. It’s almost like a buddy comedy — all they need is a wisecracking sidekick and they’ll be set, he thinks. Death sits in the passenger seat where Sam used to sit (where Sam _should_ be sitting, just the two of them against the world. Dean could’ve done something in Palo Alto, something other than hunting, he could’ve left the life but Sam didn’t want his useless older brother with him so Dean was left behind with nothing but an alcoholic burnout and a being older than _God_ ), both hands resting on his cane as he just stares out of the windshield and leaves Dean alone to his thoughts. 

Even though Dean’s cut off from practically everyone but his Dad, who only calls every four weeks like he’s just remembered he has another son (because it wasn’t like Dean was ever good enough for him, was it? Sam might’ve been the fighter but he was also the only one Dad was ever proud of, when it came down to it), and Pastor Jim and Caleb, who call with worry underlining their words when they ask Dean to drop by for the tenth time only for him to say no. He would even forget his name from all the aliases and waitresses if it wasn’t for the wrapping paper he still keeps in his car from the Christmas gift Sam mailed him, a travel guide for the Grand Canyon marked with places the two of them could go together.

He never sent anything back.

Death doesn’t speak. Like, at all. At first it’s annoying, then nice, then _lonely_. He appears more often, though, not just how it used to be, after a particularly bad hunt or whenever Dean or Sam or Dad had an injury bigger than just the broken bone or fractured rib. It almost makes Dean wonder if there’s something else going on, but he still doesn’t get it, so he doesn’t say anything. The silence that fills the motel room (“Only a single, sweetheart”) is almost oppressive, and even with Death there, watching, he’s never felt more alone.

That’s when he begins to talk.

At first it’s nothing, the product of too many beers during Sam’s 20th birthday, when he’d finally gotten the balls to send Sam a fridge magnet with the words _‘Welcome to Reno!’_ almost mocking him with their cheeriness when he’d shipped it off. He’d woken up with a splitting headache to a McDonald’s bag with hashbrowns and a shortstack, his hangover remedy that he vaguely remembered telling Death about last night. Death himself is eating the fries, staring at the T.V. with the channel turned to some kind of cop procedural drama that Dean hates, and only a small blink of his eyes even acknowledges that Dean’s awake. He doesn’t mean to continue the whole ‘sharing’ thing, until the Zeppelin tape rips at the beginning of a twelve-hour drive to Ohio, and when the silence and the wind beating down on Baby gets too much, he finds himself talking about the time Dad had tried to teach Dean how to drive in stolen cars, only for Dean to crash all of them until Dad finally let him use Baby instead. It’s almost therapeutic, in some way.

He isn’t sure if Death even ‘exists’, so to speak; he always sticks to himself, never touching a remote or book or even a stray chip that doesn’t come from his appearing bags, and yet, inexplicably, Dean will walk to Baby with the radio on instead of the tape he’d put in, or find a slice of pie missing only for Death to eat it, with Dean never actually _seeing_ him nick it. It almost turns into a game, to see if Death’s a ghost or not, because even if Dean can interact with him, no one else can.

It’s a shitty game.

Death only begins responding at the New Year, when Dad had called off the kitsune hunt and told Dean to go it alone, leading to Dean celebrating 25th birthday not in a bar but with Death, who’d almost become a permanent fixture in his life. He grabs two six-packs and a bag of hot fries, and is fully prepared to wallow in misery in silence, like he always had done, when Death raises an eyebrow. 

“Would you like a corndog?”

The last time Dean had heard Death’s voice, he was twelve years old and had feared the thing he’d thought was a reaper (which is almost laughable, at this point, because how did Dean ever mistake the aura of complete _power_ for being just a reaper?), but it sounds like it belongs, and Dean doesn’t skip a beat, just shrugs and says yes and then the floodgates open.

When Dean walks to the car after getting the ghost’s gravesite from the coroner’s office, Death comments on his absurd fashion sense and says that “even bacterium like you know better than to wear a _rented_ suit if you’re using an alias”, leading to Dean stress-buying a tux from a boutique that only serves to have the warden on the next case give him a strange once-over. When he decides to bring a girl back to the motel in June, the first time since his birthday (and isn’t that a sobering thought?), Death says nothing but “if you have _any_ class, you would’ve pleased her before yourself”, and the next town over Dean’s worshipped by the girls at the diner for his elegance in bed.

(He never really thought he’d be taking sex advice from the guy that apparently helped kill his mom, but after years of Dad blaming the Yellow-Eyed Demon, Dean had all-but-forgotten Death’s involvement, when it came down to it. He doesn’t think he’s forgiven him, but — bigger things.)

He doesn’t really even consider them friends, not really, but Death’s better company than Dad had ever been, and it’s almost freeing, just him on a case without Sam there to try and ‘learn’ from Dean, or Dad, nitpicking his every move when interviewing witnesses or dealing with the monsters. And the company was just an added bonus, he guesses. It’s freeing in a way hunting’s never been before, and while Dean always sympathized with Sam’s need to get away from it, if this is how it’s going to be for the rest of his (probably short) life? He’s willing to live with it.

Death doesn’t judge him (and isn’t that a sentence he’d never thought he’d say?), and Dean doesn’t think he needs to pick up a girl in every town they go through to prove himself, or to act like everything’s okay because it’s _Death_ , so he just adapts and finally tries to figure out who he is, without having to worry about Sam or be the better son or the best hunter, just good enough to solve the case and have money left over to grab burgers and that’s _it_. It’s kind of hilarious that his rebellious stage came in his mid-twenties, but better late than never, right?

Then he goes for a voodoo thing down in New Orleans and gets a call from Dad and everything goes to hell. Literally.

* * *

(Sometimes, Dean dreams. It’s never happened before but these days, in a run-down motel in the middle of nowhere with a nuclear powerhouse sitting next to him and no brother a bed away, he imagines that the green in his eyes in the mirror flares to power of molten gold, he thinks that if he stares at the night sky long enough he’ll find the stories written in the constellations, he’ll understand the gods behind the myths and awaken the _thing_ , thrumming in his veins, the pulsating want that burns under his skin, waiting for a blade made of bone and teeth and for the blood running in his veins to turn to smoke that will _destroy_ his soul.)

* * *

With Sam back, licking old wounds and with Jess’s death fresh in his mind, Death itself isn’t there as much. He lingers, of course; in the backseat on their way back from a hunt, assisting them on ghost cases that got particularly bad by just looking at the ghost and stopping it from making the killing shot (and when Sam asks why Dean’s not going to burn Peter’s bicycle, Death stops doing it, but wow hunts were easier when he was alone). It almost seems hypocritical of him, to wish that Sam was back at Stanford and it was, in fact, just him and Death, but he’s also pretty sure that that’s not healthy in any way, shape, or form, so he doesn’t mention it and instead goes from Dean Winchester to just Dean, Sam’s Brother.

He doesn’t frequent libraries anymore, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy is going to have to wait until later (and later is beginning to look a lot more like never, the longer Dad stays missing and the more hell-bent Sam is on finding the Yellow-Eyed Demon), but it is nice, having Sam back in the passenger seat, getting mad at his eating habits instead of encouraging them and arguing with him over every little thing, but the way he craves Death’s silence instead of Sam’s constant chatter is damning in itself, he thinks. 

Meeting Missouri is almost a trip in itself because she takes one look at the two of them and curses God for giving the two of them that kind of weight on their shoulders, and when Sam asks her what she’s talking about she just gives Dean a look full of sadness and says they’ve had to grow up too fast and leaves it at that. Leaving her house, she gives Dean a pat on the shoulder and she almost looks like she’s going to cry (Dean thinks he might, too, because he has no clue what’s going on but it doesn’t seem to be anything good).

When they finally meet Dad again, he wonders, absentmindedly, when he grew old enough to look past the hero worship and see that John isn’t a superhero but just flawed, obsessive to the point of neurotic, and when he barks orders and expects them to follow them silently, it’s only the ever-calm presence of Death that has him just nod and look at him with pity while executing them. Still, he reverts to the peacekeeper because someone has to, and then drives Baby out at night, resting on her hood and watching the stars and trying not to think about how the man standing next to him is more powerful than a thousand supernovas condensed into a human shape.

* * *

Dying is strange, Dean decides.

He, objectively speaking, can feel the pain — the semi crashing into the Impala, the twisted metal digging into his stomach, the burns erupting across his skin, and his arm, twisting behind him, the snap of broken bone the last thing he hears with human ears. But it feels like it’s coming through a mat, a sheet, like it’s happening to someone else instead of him. When his soul is ripped from his body, it doesn’t come as a surprise, just a pleasant shock through his system — it feels like coming home. He hates the way Sam cries, of course, and the way John beats himself up over it, but it’s muted, like he’s just going through the motions. 

In a way, he guesses, he is.

And if he was going to die, he supposes it isn’t a horrible way, all things considered. Death isn’t that bad of a butt buddy, and the power he would only feel in the moments between sleeping and waking seems all the more real, tangible, like if he waits long enough and tries hard enough he’ll find it. They just sit outside his hospital room and watch as his body’s brought in, operated on almost immediately, declared to be in a coma and Sam and John’s ensuing fight over that. The one time Dean brought up the afterlife, Death just looked at him, unblinking.

“Do you want to leave?”

He paused, and then felt the thrumming under his right arm, the only patch of unblemished skin, like it was waiting for something special to destroy its purity. He felt the power of the Veil calling to him and saw the souls and reapers and ghosts crowding the hospital, slipping between the Veil like it was nothing. “No, not really.”

Death shrugs. “Then you won’t. Would you like to accompany me to the New York World Fair? They have excellent cotton candy.”

All in all, it’s kind of exhilarating, really. Somehow, through some kind of mojo (Dean’s stopped trying to understand the way Death works almost as soon as he’d begun to try to understand it, in the summer of 2004. He hasn’t tried to get any information out of him, yet, but he has a nagging feeling that even if he did Death wouldn’t reveal it), Dean has a body at the fair, and it’s almost amusing, going around, walking, watching the Ferris Wheel and seeing it all from the future. It’s no wonder Death’s so unattached — if this was how Dean felt every day, he thinks he would be, too.

They spend time at the building of the pyramids and attend the grand opening of Disney World, watch the first run of Romeo and Juliet and see the fall of Rome first hand. It’s amazing, seeing the world this way, feeling almost omniscient. But when Death offers to bring him to the reveal of the Taj Mahal Dean just shakes his head and feels the power telling him the answer and says it’s time for him to go back.

“Then go.”

He gathers the power and, for the first time, feels it, filling him with a thousand suns and the light of the moon and wakes up to a loud beeping and John Winchester, whispering a curse in his ear and then crumpling to the floor, dead, while Dean watches on with knowledge that he cannot begin to understand written in his bones, the power fading fast. It isn’t his time, he’s beginning to understand. Not yet.

Still, he can’t afford to grieve. They have work to do.

* * *

(Later, they tell him that John died of a heart attack, but Dean finds the Colt missing and _knows_. He doesn’t ask Death, though, at the coincidence-that-wasn’t, and doesn’t ask if it was actually Yellow Eyes or Death because in the end it was neither of them, wasn’t it? It’s something bigger than all of them, it’s the reason his right arm burns and the reason why his dreams aren’t of fire but instead of ice, of stars and galaxies and planets being created and destroyed faster than he can fire a bullet. 

It’s the reason why Dean can see Death and no one else can, and why his little rendezvous around the world has given him the purpose and reason he cannot put into words, because no human language can hope to describe the feeling of godly fire running through his veins and the power of the sky in his fingertips, waiting for a signal he doesn’t know will ever come.)

* * *

When Sam dies, the fragile peace Dean had built with Death shatters.

Unsurprisingly, Dean can't find him after Cold Oak, and even while his emotions runs hot, as soon as he seals the deal with a kiss he can feel it, a claiming on his soil with twisted magic that makes him want to throw up, the feeling so… invasive, almost, like it was a rot destroying his body. The nexus of constellations seems far away, in that moment, and then the demon disappears and Dean spun around to see Death, looking almost — . Well, disappointed, for lack of a better word.

"Where _were_ you?" He hisses, and Death doesn't say anything, just _stands_ there. "You just let me bargain away my _soul_. You're Death, right? There has to be a _reason_ for all this shit, but no, you won't tell me, will you? You could've saved Sam, but he's _dead,_ and now? I’m a dead man walking."

His anger burns cold, a vice like grip around his body, even as he blocks out a small, guilty nagging in his gut. (“You could’ve done it yourself,” it says, “if you were _brave enough_ to take it. But you won’t, will you? Because you’re just _human_ ”). “Why didn’t you _do_ anything?” He cries, and he isn’t sure if it’s a sob or a yell because Death just stares at him, looking almost unimpressed, twisting his ring. 

“You know why,” he says simply, “You’re smarter than you look. An amusing rodent, if I’d have to say.”

And his voice is calm but Dean has spent almost three years with no company _but_ Death, he understands this for what it is. His soul’s been marked as hell-bound, and whatever weird-ass mojo lets Dean see what he shouldn’t can’t compete with that, apparently (it can give him worlds, it can make him a _god_ , but it can’t stop the knives. It can’t end his deal). When he looks up again, Death’s gone, and he can’t help but feel like he’s lost two people in a span of a week.

He can’t help but feel he’s lost his family.

* * *

(Dean supposes he should be glad. He knows what’s coming for him, the same way he knows what Sam’s favorite color is or how to change a tire, but the power thrumming in him, the power that’s been muted and almost disappeared since the deal tells him otherwise. His right arm is still unblemished, and the inky darkness that will soon consume every fiber of Dean’s being isn’t what’s meant to come, it isn’t what’s meant to pass. 

So when Sam asks why he doesn’t take this seriously? Because he knows, in his gut, that it isn’t the end. He will be walking the earth very, very soon, but he just shrugs and drinks his beer and says nothing.

Sam won’t understand.)

* * *

When Dean wakes up in a coffin with a brand on his shoulder and, this time, a different claim on his soul (but just as insulting, just as terrifying, just as painful), the first thing he does is find a gas station.

He has the feeling of being watched, the hidden stars in the air drawn to him in a way they never had been before, and it takes all of his self control not to snap them in the air because it isn’t time, not yet. So he calls Bobby and finds Sam and tries not to shudder at the way the energy around Ruby throbs erratically, the way Sam’s been _twisted_ , claimed in a way much more physical than Dean wants to know. 

Castiel’s grace is almost blinding and underwhelming, in a way. It’s elegance is frightening, and yet, it’s weaker than the power Death held, and so it shines out to compensate for that because, in the end, it’s just a handful of stars brought to earth, woven tighter than others but still breakable. A small part of Dean wants to shatter it, wants to destroy his grace to get rid of Heaven’s meddling but he doesn’t, he won’t.

Heaven isn’t important, really.

He doesn’t miss Death as much as it’s less annoying when he’s there. Everyone’s worried about Dean, about _Hell_ , and after the Ghost Sickness, he guesses they have a right to be, but in the end, nothing _matters_ , does it? It’s all just a means to an end, and if Hell’s taught him anything, it’s that some parts of it suck but it isn’t a big deal because it’s just another chess piece moved into play. And if Dean hates it? 

It’s not like he has a choice in these kinds of things.

Still, he tries as hard as he can to stop Sam and Ruby because even if it won’t work he’ll give it his all, dammit, and when it fails he almost feels relieved when they appear on the plane because he understands, he knows that God is watching, he knows that he’s doing the right thing, beyond the little nudges of energy in his gut and existential crises that aren’t that important, are they? His fate’s been decided for him, all he can do is enjoy the ride.

* * *

When Castiel’s grace wanes, Dean can see the starlight crumbling, the way it breaks and shatters whenever he does anything more strenuous than washing the dishes, but he doesn’t move to help, because it’s not like he can, can he? No, if he does, the whole world is screwed in ways bigger than anyone can imagine, and _way_ bigger than Michael and Lucifer’s dick-measuring contest. 

So he sits there, silently, and tries not to feel like he’s been cheated, almost. His entire life was dictated, either by the angels or by God, by cupids or Death, so Dean just goes through the motions and when Lucifer goes to summon Death, acting like they’ll be on the same _side_ , Dean just laughs. Still, Famine’s right, he supposes (and, honestly? Compared to Death, it’s honestly amusing, in the way that they don’t even have _half_ his power and consider themselves brothers), and as much as he doesn’t like thinking about it — it seems the better option, almost, at times, to just give up and let Paradise happen because the other option is so, so much more difficult.

It’s not like can, though, so when Castiel appears to beat him unconscious in the alleyway, he isn’t surprised.

* * *

(He can feel Death, like an itch between his shoulders that he can’t scratch. He knows that Death’s released into the world, and isn’t weird that he’s _real_ , now? If he’s being honest with himself, Dean wasn’t sure if it was a fever dream, the mad dreams of grandeur of a man who never got to be a child, and hearing the confirmation from others almost made him sigh with relief.

He doesn’t reach out to find him, though. Some part of him wants to, some part of him wants the peaceful serenity that was the three years on the road, where he had no one to answer to and no ‘higher plan’ to thwart, but can’t, so he instead watches as Bobby sells his soul to get his information and tries not to let it affect him.

He thinks he understands what Death felt, all those years ago that brought them into this whole thing in the first place. Knowledge is a curse, after all.)

* * *

When they reach the pizzeria in Chicago, Dean ignores the goosebumps erupting across his skin, the reapers just beyond his line of sight pulsating in the air, damping the smoke writhing underneath Crowley’s meatsuit and almost singing like a homing beacon. Still, he waits for Crowley to tell him, and then walks in. The Scythe is warm in his hands, a heartbeat of its own calling out to Dean, but it’s not the blade that leaves an almost physical ache behind that Dean wants so he ignores it and hands it to Death when he reaches the table.

“Thanks for returning that. Join me, Dean — the pizza's delicious.” Dean sits down and tries to ignore the power, the way the blackhole in Death is the only one so far he can’t figure out. “Took you long enough to find me. I've been wanting to talk to you.”

“For the ring,” he says, and he can almost hear the hollowness in his voice because this isn’t about the ring, is it? It’s been almost three years since he’s seen Death, and the moment feels too calm, too casual, in the grand scheme of things.

“Yes, the ring. I suppose you expect me to put up a fight?” Dean just shrugs and Death just studies him before gesturing to the plate. “Eat.”

Dean glances at him and then picks up the slice, barely taking a bite while waiting for his thoughts to collect. He supposes he should be creeped out by the silence, by the dead bodies, but this is where he thrives and he knows Death’s waiting for a question.

“The mark,” he begins, “on my soul. Can you get rid of it?”

“I can, but won’t.”

Dean nods because it was the answer he was expecting, wasn’t it? Death takes another bite and waits, and when Dean doesn’t talk he raises an eyebrow.

“You’re confused.”

And he is, isn’t he? It’s the grand crux of things because this isn’t what he wants, not really, but he doesn’t have the option of saying that to anyone because no one else would understand. Hell, Dean himself doesn’t, really. All he knows is that there’s something bigger than Heaven’s pride at stake, something larger than life, almost. He knows that this isn’t the end, he knows that they’ll win but he doesn’t know how, he doesn’t know why.

All he knows is that the supernovas can’t be caused by him, even if he thinks they can, not yet. They’re woven together by something greater than any angel can begin to understand, and yet Dean can try because no angel can even see the foundations that their mojo is based on. He knows that he can’t break them because just him _existing_ is rewriting whatever course history was supposed to take, and that’s all he can do.

All he can do for now, at least, to curb the aching in his soul for a mark he hasn’t tasted yet.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

Death peers at him over his straw, and sets the cup down on the table. “I think you know the answer to that.”

* * *

(When Sam falls into the pit Dean wants to scream, he wants to _destroy_ the way Lucifer’s claim on Sam’s soul is corrupting the electric-blue moonlight that wraps around him, that _protects_ him. But he can’t, because it isn’t time, yet. So when Castiel heals him and the mark is gone, what would’ve once been a relief is now just a Pyrrhic victory. Still, he goes to Lisa’s and tries to take comfort in her and Ben and the family they’ve built and allowed Dean to enter because this is the only break of safety he’ll get.  
  


He can feel it, though. The way the Mark calls out to him from Missouri, and it takes all of his self-control to drive Ben to the library to get the Lord of the Rings instead of hightailing it out of Indiana because it isn’t _time_ yet, because it hasn’t been completed yet.

He still doesn’t know what he’s waiting for.)

* * *

When Sam comes back, Dean wants to throw up from looking at him because whatever that is, it is _not_ his brother. But he doesn’t say anything (he’s been doing that a lot, he thinks. Too often.), so he just tries to let Bobby’s betrayal and Castiel’s skittering attitude slide off of him like water because it shouldn’t affect him like it does.

But watching Sam is hard enough, so when he goes to Death, he tries not to think of that and instead asks for Sam’s soul and gets it and ignores the urge to get rid of the hellfire scarring it, to turn it pure and whole in a way it hasn’t been since Sam was six months old and his mother burned to flames above his crib.

He can’t, not yet. But it still hurts, watching Castiel taint himself, watching him declare himself God without a single idea of what it means. The pure light that once was Castiel’s grace is now just torn, twisted, marked by a thousand and one souls that are all simply fragments. But he goes through the motions and when Sam talks about summoning Death it’s almost a laughable idea but he goes with it anyway (they don’t know that Death won’t intervene because this is Dean’s burden, these are his his Twelve Labors to prove himself to whomever crafts destinies out of stars and draws the Milky Way simply to get water). 

He watches Castiel fail and die, and he’s finally fucking tired because they want him to ‘prove himself’? He doesn’t even know how the next day is going to go but he knows this whole thing is going to end bloody and he needs his family by his side, no matter what God or Death or even the fucking earth has to say about it. 

This may have been written above, but Dean can’t, he _won’t_ let them die for him, because of him (because this isn’t their story, is it? It was never about Azazel or Lucifer or even the Special Children, it was always going to end this way, with Dean the villain and Sam and Castiel and Bobby the hero. No matter what he does Dean will be Cain in the history books, and he’s made his peace with that but he’ll be damned if he gives up before his time). So, for the first time, he rips the energy from the sun and from the ground, he unweaves the grace and _pushes_ it back into Castiel, he lets him live and swim and meet a woman name Daphne and when Castiel doesn’t recognize him it’s a punch to the gut but he’ll live with it because he’s _saved_ him.

He may have destroyed a galaxy far away for Castiel to live, but it’s worth it, because there’s nothing he _wouldn’t_ do for his family, really. And if the story ends with Abel dead? Dean will rewrite it because this may be decided for him but he will fight tooth and nail and if he can do this, if he can bring back an angel from the stardust, he sure as hell can bring the world to its knees.

So yeah, they better be fucking scared of him.

* * *

Watching Castiel, back from Purgatory, is almost enough for Dean to throw him in the Bunker’s dungeon and never tell him anything but he can’t, so he just ignores the way Naomi’s twisted his grace, this time too shiny and clean without any of the scars that made him who he was and tries to think that Castiel will be safe soon but he isn’t sure, really.

After all, Abaddon’s back, which means that the final pieces are coming into play. The power is stronger, more accessible, especially since he resurrected Castiel, so now he just sits tight and waits for Crowley’s inevitable move and tries not to think too hard when Castiel ends up abandoning him in a crypt because it’s almost time he should begin cutting off ties, isn’t it?

It’s not like he’ll be with them much longer.

* * *

Doing the Trials is worse than any kind of Hell because then he knew Sam was _safe_. Now? He’s not so sure.

He can feel the unblemished skin clawing at him, and he knows it’s almost time, that whatever path they were setting him on is going to end, one way or another, and it seems like these Trials might actually happen. 

And Dean won’t be able to stop it.

He doesn’t know enough, yet, to try and understand the dying embers of fire in the chant Sam speaks after killing the hellhound, and this is magic older than anything he can hope to figure out, so he watches and waits and hopes that this isn’t the end. When Naomi confirms his worst suspicions and tells him Sam will die? His stomach drops because even if he didn’t want Sam to die at least it would be honorably, at least it would be on his own terms.

When Gadreel comes to the hospital room claiming to be some sort of Ezekiel Dean says nothing because he isn’t sure he can risk calling the moon down to save Sam so close to the end, so he ignores the way his heart breaks watching Gadreel possess Sam and the way he has to turn away Castiel at the door, watching him leave and sending a cluster of stars with him because Dean might not be able to help him physically but he needed to do _something_.

Kevin dies and then Gadreel goes on a manhunt and Dean knows it’s _time_. He can barely hold a gun with his right arm, he sleeps with dreams of stars replaced with blood and guts and bone cutting into bone, and still he powers through and when Sam tells him to leave Dean understands and he does. Crowley finds him and they go to Cain and when he sees him Cain says nothing but orders Crowley out and brings Dean into the living room, looking at him like he’s the last hope of a dying man.

“It’s for you, isn’t it?” He asks, and Dean closes his eyes and nods because he can feel the Mark, burning and twisting, and it’s almost _time_ and he can’t think of anything else but the heft of the blade in his hand. Cain looks at him and then holds out his hand, and Dean clasps it.

“When it’s done, promise you’ll come for me,” he says, and the words are matter-of-fact and Dean understands what being a monster is so he just nods and then all he can think of is _flames and fire_ , all he can think of is the right mark finally digging into his soul and it’s almost there and the blade is so close and then. it’s. gone.

The overwhelming rush of adrenaline that runs through him is practically enough, Dean thinks, but he knows something’s missing so when Cain tells him where the blade is hidden he commits it to memory, and then he’s outside and watching as the house is filled with embers and ash, watches a different kind of magic erupt from Cain and hold his soul hostage.

“What’s that about, squirrel?”

Dean looks at Crowley and it’s honestly hilarious, the way that these people who he’d once thought were important were nothing more than pawns. They’re useless, really, but he has nothing to say to that so he doesn’t say anything, just shrugs and hears the screams of demons getting burned alive. 

“It’s a private thing,” he says, and while it’s true he plasters on a shit-eating grin and Crowley rolls his eyes at the ‘lack of tact’ and Dean decides not to mention the way he can get pulverize the brimstone that twists Crowley’s soul in a second, the way he can destroy him in ways much worse than hell can even imagine.

“Well then, I suppose we'll be leaving now.”

* * *

With the Mark on his arm and the patch of virgin skin on his arm finally scarred, Dean can feel it looming ever-closer, can feel the end. Death appears in his dreams, and does nothing but sit next to him as he watches the creation of God and Amara, as he sees the Empty grow jealous of their bond and the planets Amara destroyed in her anger. He watches God create Michael and Lucifer for the sole purpose of annoying her, and then Gabriel and Raphael to cast her to her own prison, a universe of nothing to which the Mark is the key. He watches Lucifer get corrupted by the Mark and then see it given to Cain, a placeholder until it’s true bearer comes along. 

He watches and sees Amara, a goddess without a temple, grow insane and and finally give in, crumpling into nothing and sending herself out, cursing the bearer and everyone who’s ever touched it. He watches the destiny she weaves into Atropos’s book, he sees the way the power flows into the world and finds a bearer in a babe born on January 24, 1979.

He sees the birth of the world and finally understands what he has to do next. He finally understands the ending of his story.

* * *

Dean goes after Abaddon because he has to, dies from Metratron because he can, and waits for Crowley to bring him back.

As a demon, he hasn’t changed much, he doesn’t think. He supposes it’s Amara’s parting gift, a bit of rebellious freedom that he doesn’t have to overthink, but it’s still strange, exhilarating to be able to answer to no one and do nothing, to feel the high of the Mark better than any whiskey or beer or narcotic and feeling no inhibitions to ignore it. It’s a glorious thing, but Icarus fell to the earth and so does Dean, a mere three months later.

Sam heals him and Dean tries not to let it get to him, and instead he watches a musical based on their lives and thinks that if this is his legacy he’ll be happy, but it won’t though, will it? Because God still writes the Gospels of Winchester but even the Bible was wrong and somewhere, someday, someone will uncover the half-truths Chuck wrote and Dean selfishly hopes that Castiel will be long gone before that happens.

He meets Jody and says goodbye to Claire and finds Garth and then, finally, when the plan to get rid of the Mark is too close to its end he goes to Death in a Mexican restaurant and gets two beers and a plate of nachos and then sits down in a booth, toasting with their beers and ignoring the Scythe and Blade that Dean uses the earth to find and bring to him, resting on the table too close for them to pretend this meeting is anything it’s not.

They sit in silence and say nothing, and when Baby's rumble is only minutes away Death stands, wiping his hands on the napkin and patting his mouth dry. “I suppose it’s time.” 

Dean stands, too, and grabs the Blade, the heft easy in its familiarity. Death then turns and faces him, and Dean ignores the way his skin shivers and, as soon as Sam is just outside the door, he lifts it, plunging it into Death’s core like it’s nothing, and a galaxy erupts under Death’s skin, blinding in its ugliness (and Dean had once thought that Death was a blackhole but oh was he wrong, there is nothing missing in this) and Dean can feel the shock but then it goes to nothing because the power is finally _there_ , and nothing’s blocking it and he’s suddenly, finally, _whole_. 

“Thank you,” Death whispers, looking him in the eyes and a corner of his mouth turning up in a wry smile, the final act of a dying star. He collapses, then, him and the Scythe crumbling into dust and spreading into the air when Sam opens the door, wide-eyed and frantic in a way Dean’s never seen before.

“Dean?” He gasps out, and Dean can see his shock at the Blade he holds in his hand, at the constellations dancing under his skin, but he is a brother first and foremost and his relief sings in the way the starfire hidden in his eyes flares purple. “Oh, thank God, what happened? Please don’t tell me you did anything stupid.”

Dean smiles, lips twitching, and he walks over to Sam. “I love you, man, you know that, right?”

Sam skitters, tense, and his eyes fade to orange as he reaches for his gun. “Dean? Just… let go of the blade, okay? Then we can talk.”

“I love you, but I have to do this,” he breathes, and when Sam takes a step behind, he surges forward and thrusts the Blade into his skin, marvelling at how small his life is compared to the solar system he’d just destroyed. “I’m sorry, Sammy.”

Sam’s eyes are wide, shock and betrayal in equal measure dancing across his face, and then it’s over, his eyes turning glassy and his body slumping into Dean’s arms, his soul standing there, staring at Dean in horror.

“I had to do this.”

* * *

_They watch Cain slaughter Abel with tears in his eyes, and Dean sees Abel’s blood water their fields and tries to blink away the thought of Sam there from Dean’s blade._

_“Why me?” He asks, and he doesn’t expect Death to answer but he does as Cain calls to God and gets branded with the Mark on Dean’s arm._

_“You or Sam, Cain or Abel, Romulus or Remus — it’s an old story, Dean, you aren’t the first to protect a brother. But you made a vow, and the pool of two closed to one.”_

_“A vow?”_

_Death finally turns to look at him, equal parts annoyed and vaguely surprised at his hard-headedness. “Why do you think you never realized it until you were a teenager? Think, Dean. There’s a reason for all this.”_

_Dean stares and for a moment he doesn’t realize but then —_ Not Sam, _he’d said._ Never Sam _._

_He’s silent, for a moment, and they both watch as Cain’s shepherded out of his own home because of the Mark, and then he speaks again. “He’ll go to Heaven, right?”_

_Death turns his head and fixes Dean in place, studying the tremor in his hands and the way his voice shakes._

_“He’ll be at peace.”_

* * *

**[...] for then Death was slain by His protege Dean, and so came the new Death to creation, and the first He reaped was His brother.**

**The LORD watched and approved, and all was well.**

**Hannah 24:16-17**

_**The New Bible of Winchester**_

_**(as Transcribed and Translated by Chuck Shurley,** _

_**Immortal Prophet of the Lord)**_

**From the collection of the angel Castiel**

**Retrieved at 24 January 6032**

**  
******   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Brief Suicidal Idealization, Major Character Death, Fratricide
> 
> (if theres any discrepancies or smth of the sort pls drop a comment and lmk) (or just drop a comment ;))
> 
> yes ik that bc of the fact that it was originally supposed to be a hunger games isque thing between dean and sam, technically sam shouldve seen death until he was ten, but bc amara's weird it was going to be dean all along, really
> 
> also when dean says that he can see the way things are going to turn out he actually doesnt and he just kinda has like a gut feeling like 'this apocalypse isnt gonna be the real one!' or smth like that, he doesnt _actually_ know whats going on until he forces it when he brings cas back to life


End file.
